1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to retroreflective material and to methods of manufacturing such material. A retroreflective material is a material that returns or directs most of an incident light beam back toward the light source in a cone having a small angle, even though the incident light strikes at an angle. This is known as a retroreflective effect.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In prior art retroreflective materials, a retroreflective effect is provided by a variety of optical elements including glass beads, cube corners and lenslet arrays. The glass beads are coated on a substrate; the cube corners are typically embossed in plastic sheet material; and the array of lenslets is spaced from a reflective surface positioned in the back focal plane of the lenslets.